Description of Plant

Leaf: Dark green above and paler underneath, turning yellow in the autumn. Leaves are 5-10 cm in length and ovate with pointed tips. They are doubly saw-toothed with 6-9 veins on each side and sticky when young.

Flower: Appear in early spring and are tiny. The male is yellowish with 2 stamens in long drooping catkins near the tip of the twigs. The female flowers are greenish and appear in short upright catkins on the back tip of the same twig.

Cones: 2-3 cm in length, cylindrical and containing many small two-winged nutlets.

Twig: Slender, reddish-brown and mostly hairless.

Bark: White, smooth and flaky, that peels off in strips. The inner bark is orange which turns brown and becomes furrowed in time.

Form: Pyramid shaped tree that has a spreading crown of long slightly drooping branches. Can grow to a height of fifty feet to seventy feet.

Discussion of Plant

This tree is used for specialty products such as toothpicks, toys, ice cream sticks and bobbins. Birch bark should not be stripped from the tree as it will leave an ugly black scar. Native Americans made canoes from the bark by stretching it over a frame and sewing it together with thread made of Tamarack roots.

Copyright

Sue Grabowski, Gail Slowinski, Carl Schurz High School 2003

References

Coombes, Allen, J, Smithsonian Handbook of Trees, Dorling Kindersley, London, 2002.

Little, Elbert, L., Field Guide to Trees, Alfred A. Knopf, New York. 1980.

Symonds, George, W.D., The Tree Identification Book, Quill Publishing, New York, N.Y. 1958.